Even a poll-obsessive like me would have to admit that during election campaigns we often spend too much time focusing on the election ‘horse race’ – who is up and who is down in the polls – on an almost hourly basis.
Even in this election, where Labour has been well ahead of the Conservatives from the outset, the focus has been on how much.
Figures for the Labour lead span a huge range from 16 to 25 points. And now there’s talk of “crossover”.
Has Nigel Farage led Reform past the Tories into second place for the first time in a general election campaign?
There’s a 10-point difference between pollsters in the figures reported for Reform UK starting at nine points and reaching 19.
The unprecedented nature of what the top end of these results suggest means we could be heading for a seismic reordering of the political landscape on 4 July. Alternatively, many pollsters could end up with egg on their faces.
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What lessons can we learn from polling at previous British general elections?
Time brings greater accuracy
Perhaps the most fundamental thing is that polls become more informative about the result as election day nears.
Simply, the difference between how a party is polling and its actual vote falls by about two points on average over the final 100 days.
Of course, some campaigns see much bigger shifts in the polls while others hardly move at all.
Remember that many people – around one in five – will cast their vote by post, long before polling day. Even if the race tightens, it may be too late for some to change their minds.
The key question to keep in mind when considering the latest polls is whether and how much they move during the campaign and the possibility that they could be getting a particular party’s vote too high or too low. Recent elections offer some salutary lessons about whether we should trust the polls.
In 2019, both Boris…
